Back to the Ego: Gospel Humility

CONTINUING WITH PASTOR TIM KELLER'S NEW BOOK THE FREEDOM OF SELF-FORGETFULNESS:

PAUL IS SAYING SOMETHING ASTOUNDING. (In 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7) I don't care what you think and I don't care what I think. He is bringing us into new territory that we know nothing about. His ego is not puffed up, it is filled up. He is talking about humility----although I hate using the word 'humility' because this is nothing like our idea of humility. Paul is saying he has reached a place where his ego draws no more attention to itself than any other part of his body. He has reach the place where he is not thinking about himself anymore. When he does something wrong or something good, he does not connect it to himself any more. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity makes a brilliant observation about gospel-humility at the very end of his chapter on pride. If we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from them thinking they were humble. They would not be always telling us they were a nobody---such a person is actually self-obsessed. The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or less of myself---it is thinking of myself less. Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself.

----Pastor Tim Keller